Enhancing Community/Academic Clinical Research Collaboration From its inception, the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR) Community Engagement Program (CE) has based its efforts on the guiding principles of Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), with our initial Clinical Translational Science Award jointly developed by community leaders and university faculty and staff, incorporating Clinical Research Advocates (CRAs) from the project start-up. We recognize that it is vitally important that members of underserved groups be adequately represented in clinical and translational research if we are truly to benefit the health of the whole community. Thus, we have focused our resources towards the at-risk groups of: racial and ethnic minorities, women, at-risk infants, children and youth, and persons with disabilities - initially focusing on traditionally underserved communities within Detroit, Flint, and Washtenaw County, with CRA effort in each focal community. This RFA provides the opportunity to build upon the existing strengths of our CE program, and to further coordinate and expand the expertise of three exemplary community partners in order to describe and advance the essential best practices that capacitate communities for the purposes of uplifting the public health through the following specific aims: 1) Enhance the capacity of our community partners to engage in, contribute to and direct selected aspects of community-based research activities in a more empowered and independent fashion;2) Accelerate the development of productive academic/community collaborations reducing the time required to initiate and complete community-based clinical research and 3) utilize CBPR principles to develop and refine stages of the research process for engaging partners and linking partnerships to outcomes (and ultimately to dissemination). We will accomplish these aims in three phases using a successful 'Partners in Research'model developed at the University of Michigan that expands the role of the three CRA's. In Phase 1 we will jointly develop training modules that facilitate co-learning;in phase 2 we will train and certify community members and researchers;and in phase 3 we will evaluate and synthesize best practices for dissemination. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: From its inception, the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR) Community Engagement Program (CE) has based its efforts on the guiding principles of Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), with our initial Clinical Translational Science Award jointly developed by community leaders and university faculty and staff, incorporating Clinical Research Advocates (CRAs) from the project start-up. We recognize that it is vitally important that members of underserved groups be adequately represented in clinical and translational research if we are truly to benefit the health of the whole community.